


but i'd rather be broken than empty

by tinyinkstainedbird



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Bipolar Disorder, Depression, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-05 02:20:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1801840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinyinkstainedbird/pseuds/tinyinkstainedbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Remember that time in the dugout when Mickey said "Jesus Christ, you wanna spread a blanket out and count stars next?" </p><p>So does he. </p><p>Takes place immediately after 4x12.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but i'd rather be broken than empty

_i am in love and i am lost_

_but i'd rather be broken than empty_

_i'd rather be shattered than hollow_

_i'd rather be by your side._

 

Depression is a place.

It's a maze you know you're never going to get out of and you don't know how the fuck you got there or how to leave and even if you did, you wouldn't have the energy to get up and go anyway. There's only enough room in this place for you, no matter how lonely and scared you get, and it's only after you've pushed everyone out that the walls start to close in on you.

And then one day you just never get up.

You know people are looking at you and maybe you loved them once but they don't love you, how could they, look at you, you're a broken piece of shit tangled in white bed sheets and you can't _fucking get up --_ so you don't let them in. You can't. You can't move. You'd just break them anyway. Your cries for help become _i'm fine_ and _leave me alone_ because it's for their own good _._ They want to make you to eat; they want you to get your sneakers and go for a run. They don’t know you will die if you get out of bed.

You will die if you get out of bed because you will kill yourself.

And that's where Ian is right now.

+

"Get up."

The house is quiet. Ian’s siblings have all given up and gone home.

He'd heard what they'd said, the clinical concern, the name _Monica_ , the word _suicidal_ , and then all he could see was the memory of his mother on the kitchen floor, blood everywhere, Debbie crying. The next thing he heard was the front door close. They were gone.

The fact that they left without him makes it all so real. They're going to talk about him and worry and scheme and plan and strategize and get by the best they can because they're Gallaghers and that's what they goddamn do: they figure shit out and they survive. Suddenly, Ian is just another overdue bill they neglected until they couldn't ignore it anymore and now it's a _fucking problem_.

And so the Milkovich house went quiet again, except for the creaking floorboards in the hall outside his room. Ian had listened to the hesitant, worried little feet taking steps forward and backward, so unsure of what to do. Because -- and this is the most embarrassing part of this whole fucking thing -- the bed that Ian can't get out of isn't even _his_. It belongs to the boy pacing the hall.

The footsteps shuffled for another five minutes before the door swung open. And now Mickey is standing at the end of the bed, telling him to get up.

"Ian, get the fuck up," Mickey says, but it's so gentle that Ian has to close his eyes. A tear falls anyway. "Get up, please."

"Go away," Ian mumbles, because it’s all he can do.

"That's my fucking bed you're comatose in," Mickey snaps. "I'm not _going away,_ you douchebag."

Ian thinks he's going to choke on his own heart because he can't tell Mickey what will happen if he makes him get out of this bed. He just can't.

"So if you're not gonna get up," Mickey grumbles, and Ian feels a weight behind him on the bed before he continues to grumble "then I'm getting in," and when that makes Ian burst into those silent swollen little boy tears of his, Mickey puts an arm around his cold heaving chest and holds him close, so close, closer than any of those awful walls locking him in, with arms too soft to ever crush.

Because Mickey might not understand this fucking maze he's in either but he'll be damned if he doesn't get Ian out of it.

+

It snows through the next night like it snows through most nights but this is the night that Mickey knows he straight up flat out cannot fucking lose this kid again so he looks outside at the falling snow and the bright white moon and he starts gathering blankets.

"Come on," he barks. "Don't make me flip the fucking mattress. On your feet, Gallagher."

The command, so militant, so reminiscent of a place that had broken him, makes Ian curl up a bit tighter, but it also wakes him up, clears his head. His brain is wired to respond to direct orders. He rolls over to look at Mickey, standing by the door with blankets and jackets and blue jeans in his arms.

Ian tries to muster curiosity. His voice is raw from lack of use. "It's three in the morning."

"What the fuck do you care? You just slept for 52 hours."

“Tired.”

“Get up, or I’m throwing you over my shoulder.”

“I don’t—” Ian protests weakly, but doesn’t have the energy to explain. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. You’re not a fucking cripple. Use your goddamn legs.”

“Jesus Christ,” Ian says, his voice trembling as it rises. “Leave me alone, Mickey. You don’t understand.”

“Course I don’t _understand_ ,” Mickey barks back, sitting on his knees on the bed. “I don’t understand how you could go from running ten miles a day and dancing in your fucking sparkly-ass underwear for pervy old men and telling me you were done with me because I wasn’t free and beating the shit out of my dad with me to _this_. You’re the ballsiest, most stubborn little shit I’ve ever met and now you can’t even fucking move, and no, I don’t fucking understand, but I don’t care. You’re getting up because I can’t look at you lying here like a goddamn corpse anymore.”

Ian blinks up at him. It’s too much to respond to.

“Please, holy shit,” Mickey says. “Just come with me. Give me ten minutes. Then you can get right back into bed, all right?”

“You’re not kicking me out?”

“What?” Mickey gives him a dirty look. “No. Dumbass. Fuck.”

Ian’s not so lost that he can’t love Mickey and how good and kind he is underneath the anger and profanity and the grime and the neighborhood he grew up in and how often he’s been beaten and told what a piece of shit he is. He still loves him. He hasn’t lost that. Ten minutes won’t kill him.

“Okay,” he murmurs.

Mickey exhales sharply, like he’s been holding his breath for days, and nods, relief written all over his face, and Ian looks at him and wonders how long he’s had tears in his eyes for. “Let’s get you dressed, then,” he mutters. “Don’t want you to catch a cold.”

Ian sits up, his body heavy, his arms shaking, and as soon as he’s upright, he dissolves again, crying into his hands. He’s embarrassed and tired and frustrated and naked and helpless and Mickey’s swearing at him as he ignores Ian’s tears and slips a sweater over his head. Ian didn’t know it was possible to want to die and be so in love at the same time, but it feels a lot like shattering.

When he’s good and bundled head to toe in winter clothes, Mickey gently but firmly pulls him off the bed. “Come on, tough guy,” he mumbles. “Let’s get you out of here.”

+

The night is crisp and clear and Ian would be cold if Mickey hadn’t dressed him in eight hundred layers of sweaters and scarves. It feels dizzy and disorienting to be up and walking around, but at least it’s dark and he feels hidden. This isn’t so bad. He can do this.

It’s been days since he’s even smiled, but when Mickey leads him around the house to the backyard, Ian almost laughs. “Really?”

“What?” Mickey grumbles defensively. “You like gay shit. So I did some gay shit.”

“Sure did,” Ian agrees.

“I put down every blanket I could find,” Mickey explains, leading him to the middle of the yard, where a stack of mismatched quilts and sleeping bags are spread out on top of the freshly fallen snow. “So it should take awhile before our asses get wet.”

“You’re nuts.”

“ _I’m_ nuts,” Mickey laughs. “Okay, Snorlax.”

“What the hell is a Snorlax?”

Mickey gives him a disgusted look. “It’s that big lazy ass Pokemon that sleeps all the time. Jesus.” They reach the blanket and Mickey eases him down, draping another blanket over his shoulders before he sits down beside him and burrows under the blanket as well. “Good?”

“Good,” Ian replies quietly. “But what is this?”

“What does it look like?”

“A date. Which is weird.”

“Why the fuck is that weird?”

“Because it’s three AM,” Ian mutters, every word a little quieter than the last. “And I’ve just spent two days in bed.”

“So?”

Ian shakes his head.

Mickey gets that it’s hard for him to keep talking, but he doesn’t want him to stop, doesn't want him to retreat back into himself where Mickey can't find him again. “Miss ya,” he says, in that off-hand, non-committal, brave way he has, punctuating it with the lighting of a cigarette.

“I’m right here,” Ian says.

“No you’re not,” Mickey says with a sad sideways smirk. “That’s why I miss you.”

“Sorry.”

“Not your fault.”

“So…” Ian clears his throat, his voice scratchy. His jaw feels broken, like it’s too much work to form vowels and consonants into actual words. He can’t enunciate, but doesn’t mind that Mickey leans closer to hear him better. It’s taken awhile for the insidious fingerprints he’d never asked for all over his body to catch up to him, but they have now, and he doesn’t want anyone touching him again for a long time. But Mickey’s okay. Mickey is safe. Mickey can touch. “You thought you’d spread a blanket out and we’d count stars and then I’d be all better?”

“Don’t be a dick,” Mickey snaps, because he doesn’t know how to be gentle, not really, not when things matter, not when he’s just a boy who’s only been taught how to fight. “I’m trying, okay?”

“Okay,” Ian murmurs. “I know you are.”

“Has this happened before?” Mickey asks. “This whole zombie thing?”

“Not this bad,” he says, and it makes his stomach sink to admit that this is serious. “After your wedding I was fucked up but not like this.”

Mickey nods. “So it’s my fault again.”

“No, Mickey,” Ian says. “I’m just tired.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have gone for so many runs.”

Finally, Ian smiles. Innocent is the last word anyone would ever think to use to describe Mickey Milkovich, but right now, that’s what he is. He’s a kid who’s felt like shit his entire life, but somehow he really doesn’t understand what it’s like to be this sad. Here he is anyway, under these stars and that moon, on top of this mountain of blankets, using his own body heat to keep Ian warm, doing the best he can. “It’s a different kind of tired, Mick.”

"What triggered it?"

Ian shrugs.

“How do we fix it?”

“We?”

“Yeah, fucking we,” Mickey snaps. “Look, I’m not losing you again, okay? So we’re doing this. End of story.”

“We don’t know what we’re doing,” Ian laughs softly.

“What the fuck does that matter?” Mickey demands. “Yeah, no, I don’t know what’s going on. I can’t beat the shit out of you to get you out of bed and make you start acting normal so I don’t know what the fuck to do. I have a fucking ninth grade education; I don’t know shit about dick. I’ve never felt so stupid and useless but fuck it, I’m not going anywhere. I’m figuring this shit out.”

“Mickey, you’re not—”

“Ah, shut the fuck up, Gallagher,” he snaps, and then seems to deflate. “Your sister scared the shit out of me yesterday, you know.”

“Fiona,” Ian says softly, just to say her name.

“Yeah, Fiona,” he says. “Said it might be bipolar.”

“Might be.”

“Yeah, well, she also said you might try to kill yourself, like your mom.”

Ian looks at him, the cold winter air coloring his cheeks sweetly, his freckles standing out like they use to, back when they’d first begun and Ian had been just a kid. “I’m not my mom,” he says, almost growls.

“Good.”

Tears well in Ian’s eyes.

“Fuck,” Mickey says when he sees them.

“I couldn’t do that to Debbie,” Ian says, throat tight, voice strangled. “I couldn’t do that to any of them, but Debbie – God, you should’ve seen her face.” He shakes his head. “And I couldn’t fucking do that to you either.”

Mickey lets out a shaky breath, using the heel of his hand to wipe at his eyes. Even breaking, Ian Gallagher is the one fucking person in Mickey's little world that would never do a goddamn thing to hurt him. Mandy's going to get herself killed just so that she doesn't have to deal with her broken heart, his brothers don't give a shit about him, his mom is dead and don't even get him started on his fucking father. There’s only Ian.

And that's all Mickey needs.

"You okay?"

Mickey laughs. "Fuck off, Gallagher." He shakes his head, laughs again. "You must be okay if you're asking if I am."

"I will be," Ian says. "Probably."

"Fuck your probably," Mickey snaps. "We're gonna get out of here, you hear me?"

"Out of Chicago?"

"Out of _here_ ," Mickey says, turning his body to face Ian fully, holding his chin in his hand, rough, calloused, never gentle, but strong, non-negotiable, _sure_. "This fucked-up head of yours. Whatever the fuck's going on in there, we're gonna get you out of it."

"Mick--"

"How many times do I gotta tell you to shut the fuck up?" Mickey snaps. "After all the shit I've done because of you, all the shit I never thought I could do -- you really think this is where I’m gonna draw the line? If I was gonna give up on you, I would've done it a long fucking time ago."

Ian purses his lips and nods. He doesn't know how to thank him, so he just bows his head so that he can kiss the palm of Mickey's hand. 

"I don't know what to do," Mickey says.

"Me neither, Mickey."

"I keep thinking maybe it'll go away on its own but I've been reading about it and I don't know if it works like that," he mutters. "And then I think maybe I should listen to your sister and let her take you to the hospital."

"I'm not going to the hospital."

"And if this doesn't get better?"

"I don't know," Ian says, feeling himself shut down. "Whatever happens, I won't leave you behind. That's the best I can do right now."

"That's fucking -- that's enough." Mickey extinguishes his cigarette in the snow, tries to steady his breathing. "Moon's bright."

"Yeah." Ian feels overwhelmingly tiny and insignificant as he looks up at the stars, but then Mickey throws an arm around him, and he thinks maybe he really does fucking matter. Maybe, just maybe, if this boy who’s spent his entire life in a haze of hurt, if this boy who’s finally free and trying, if this boy who had once wanted to kill him can love him now no matter how high or low he goes, maybe he’ll find his way out of this. Maybe not yet, but maybe someday.

“You know anything about stars?” Ian asks.

“Not a fuckin thing.”

“That one there, the brightest one?” Ian points, and it breaks his heart to know all this talk of stars might have Mickey thinking he has him back when he really doesn’t. “That’s the North star.”

“Yeah? Army teach you that?”

“Basic life skills taught me that,” Ian replies, and Mickey laughs, and he feels even guiltier. “You ever get lost, you find the North star and just follow it home.”

“Easy as that, huh?”

Ian smirks. “Guess maybe it’s harder than it sounds.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t get lost,” Mickey says.

“No, but I do,” Ian replies, and notices that Mickey’s hands are shaking as he lights another cigarette, so he puts his head on his shoulder and stays with him as long as he can.

+

And then Ian goes back to bed and he doesn’t get out of it again. He doesn’t say a word the next day. Mickey watches him sleep the day away, this kid who could teach him about stars if he weren’t so sad, who maybe will when he feels a little better, this kid who woke up just long enough to promise he won’t leave him behind, no matter the highs, no matter the lows.

Mickey still doesn’t know what to do. Doesn’t have a plan. Doesn’t have a fucking clue. When Fiona comes by to check on her brother, Mickey still swears and yells at her and tells her he’s going to take care of him and he’s sure she sees it in his eyes just how scared he is but he doesn’t care. They’re all scared. Ian’s worth it.

So no, he doesn’t know what to do. Never said he did. He hides the knives, gets a fucking library card so he can take out books on bipolar, brings him food he never eats, watches his chest rise and fall to make sure he’s still breathing, wonders if he just says he fucking loves him, if that would help, if that would make him happy enough to sit the fuck up, but he never does because this isn’t how he wants to tell him.

At the end of the next night, when he hasn’t spoken or eaten or moved a muscle, the only thing Mickey can think of to do is open the curtains by the bed.

The stars are out.

Ian opens his eyes, and looks for the brightest one.

**Author's Note:**

> title and lyrics come from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAHdPzR2uIs


End file.
